There are many reasons for this ever-climbing [tuition], but the most bizarre comes courtesy of the highly influential US News rankings. Part of the US News algorithm is a figure called expenditures per student, which is essentially the sum that a school spends on teacher salaries, libraries and other education expenses, divided by the number of students.

Though it accounts for just 9.75 percent of the algorithm, it gives law schools a strong incentive to keep prices high. Forget about looking for cost efficiencies. The more that law schools charge their students, and the more they spend to educate them, the better they fare in the US News rankings.

“I once joked with my dean that there is a certain amount of money that we could drag into the middle of the school’s quadrangle and burn,” said John F. Duffy, a George Washington School of Law professor, “and when the flames died down, we’d be a Top 10 school. As long as the point of the bonfire was to teach our students. Perhaps what we could teach them is the idiocy in the US News rankings.”

Much more at the link (with a big focus on New York Law School (which is not to be confused with New York University School of Law).

The product is a law school diploma. It's not hard to supply. But why all the demand... at such a high price? There's something quite insane about it, and U.S. News creates appearance of an orderly market in which potential buyers can see the value of the thing they will buy at such a high price. Those who bitch about U.S. News are in denial about the service it provides us, creating that appearance. [And by "us," I mean law professors.]

Colleges and universities over charge for what they provide. It is BS and smart kids are avoiding it by carefully picking (as they should).

The very top elite schools can get away with it because their graduates generally get jobs (and great paying or very influential ones). As Scalia said, it is not that the schools are better, but the perception is the selection criteria is better.

Not the fact you Democrat Party members are taking home $170,000 a year in taxpayer money, Ann and will retire with a million-dollar pension courtesy of workers in the United States whom you take this money forcibly from.

Same reason handguns and shotguns were in demand here a century and more ago: protection, crime, food, collecting in a wild land. And still are.

An irony of law and lawyers is that, past an indefinable aggregate number of them and outside a hard-to-see quality of their character, wildness intensifies. The same is true of clergy and doctor, BTW. Debasement and disease increase as their numbers and character exceed parameters no one can see for certain.

When it is too late, when their excess is on us, as today, then we see the mal-effects of their orthogenesis. Then ways are found to cut their number and correct their character. Lawyers, clergy and doctors, I mean.

Law school applications will keep climbing through the stratosphere, and more and more new law schools will open, no matter how bad the job market for new graduates may be. This is for the simple reason that law school is easy: no math, no science, no computers.

I've always suspected that the NYT is about as capitalist as the Politburo, so this bizarre assertion does not surprise me. The law school market is a guild system on steroids, a guild system closely tied to the government. It's the antithesis of real free market capitalism.

It's impervious to change because it is not very susceptible to normal market forces, any more than government in general is.

Hm, no computers in law schools? Perhaps. But everyone comes in carrying a laptop.

And, the firms? WOW-ZEE ... what a market for Google's databasing skills. A small shop ... Maybe, with just one credential hung by the desk? And, a Google app! You can snow back any other firm! Even the bigs ones!

You'd even have a calendar that you'd carry around on your Android or iPhone ... telling you when one of your missives hit ... And, the people on the other side? They'll get so much "incoming" ... there only way out will be via data mining.

Buy GOOGLE. Ahead, they are still going to make a killing. And, here you have a market ... overgrown ... just waiting for technology.

In the old days? You paid a secretary. Who could type a document perfectly. And, she had learned all about the various forms.

The regulatory state deserves a full share of responsibility. As we approach a state of the world in which everybody needs a lawyer to find a way through the federal labyrinth, the demand for them keeps growing.

I see this kind of statement all the time, but I never know what it means.

A quick search tells me that the average tuition for day students at Tennessee boarding schools is $23,150 per year. Vanderbilt, where a lot of these TN prep-school students are hoping to enroll, charges $40,320 for tuition. Supposing we can agree that it's unrealistic to expect Vandy to charge no less than a local prep school, how much more can it charge before it's "overcharging"? 30%? 50%? 75% (as is the case)? 100%?

I'm genuinely puzzled by the readiness of people who are usually pro-free-market to invoke some sort of Thomistic notion of a "just price" when discussing universities.

I would presume that in this sector as elsewhere, the forces of supply and demand are relentless.

Ironrail has a point. In general, beginning law students, while they may have a background in anthropology, sociology, business,or "____" studies, they do not have a serious grounding in what used to be called the liberal arts. Many are adept at learning legal rules and spotting when a fact situation may implicate two contrary rules, but that's about it.

It would be an entirely different matter if the first year of law school was devoted to the study of political theory (with an emphasis on the Federalist Papers), political philosophy, logic and the history of economic thought. Too many practicing lawyers (and too many judges),if asked why federalism or the separation of powers are good things, appear stymied by the question. They may know the legal rules that govern these principles allright; but they seem to have trouble getting to any deeper analysis.

I would presume that in this sector as elsewhere, the forces of supply and demand are relentless.

You presume wrongly then. The demand for lawyers is driven almost entirely by government. That is, by other lawyers. The thing lawyers work with is the law, and there is only one source for the law.

In addition to creating virtually all the demand for lawyers, government controls the supply of them via the needlessly restrictive process it establishes to become a lawyer. The practice of law is a textbook example of a guild system and as such is designed to minimize the consequences of negative external economic factors.

AJ Lynch says:Oh please- the NYT reporter posits that tuition could be lower but for the US News & World Report algorithm? What a gonif.

No, the NY Times writer simply states that the US News expenditures per student algorithm provides incentives to keep prices high. He doesn't state that removing that tuition would be lower but for that one item, but he points out how the algorithm helps feed the problem. In other words, he does what a good reporter does, provide some facts that help illustrate a larger issue. If you're going to critique the reporter's work, it might help to engage what he actually wrote.

Althouse says:Those who bitch about U.S. News are in denial about the service it provides us, creating that appearance. [And by "us," I mean law professors.]

No, those who bitch about the US News rankings and the way legal education is generally set up in this country (like Justice John Roberts, for example) are not in denial about the service it provides law professors. If fact, we know that very well and that service is part of the problem. The issue is the lack of service it provides law students, the legal profession and society in general.

The law school market is a guild system on steroids, a guild system closely tied to the government. It's the antithesis of real free market capitalism.

Yes, but with one exception: for pricing the really top-tier schools, the rule of "all the traffic will bear" applies, due to high demand and limited supply. And why the high demand? Not necessarily for the quality of the education. For the connections. The friendship network. The in-crowd takes care of the in-crowd, the governing class perpetuates itself.

Lawyers and the regulatory state are like peanut-butter and chocolate. Or some less tasty combination. A great many members of the regulatory state are themselves lawyers. Other lawyers, not officially employed by the regulatory state themselves, constantly file cases with the explicit intention of expanding the boundaries of that state.

It's true that without the regulatory state we'd have a lot fewer lawyers. That's why lawyers are such friends of the regulatory state.

@flenser, The words in question are "supply and demand." If the ever-growing regulatory state pumps up the demand for lawyers, then it increases the demand for law school. So it makes no sense to say that, because big government drives the demand for lawyers, law-school tuition is not driven by the forces of supply and demand.

This point is nearly tautological, but it was initially made in response to the assertion that universities in general "over charge" for tuition. It isn't "overcharging" if it's a response to demand.

I'm confident that I know what the words "supply and demand" mean, and you've still said nothing to suggest otherwise.

If the ever-growing regulatory state pumps up the demand for lawyers, then it increases the demand for law school.

Indeed. And if it also restricts the "supply" of lawyers (by making people jump through unnecessary hoops to become one) then these two things - increasing the demand and limiting the supply - will cause lawyers to make more money than they would under a free market system.

In a broader context your words were:

I'm genuinely puzzled by the readiness of people who are usually pro-free-market to invoke some sort of Thomistic notion of a "just price" when discussing universities.

I would presume that in this sector as elsewhere, the forces of supply and demand are relentless.

I'm genuinely puzzled that you seem to confuse the supply and demand created by government with free-market supply and demand. When the Politburo "demanded" that Peoples Agricultural Unit Number 53 "supply" 100 million tons of wheat, there is "supply and demand" going on there too. But those who would defend that sort of supply and demand are hardly in a position to lecture others about their lack of fidelity to free-market principles.

I don't think law school or lawyering has very much to do with modern capitalism, American or other wise. It is a hold over from the medieval guild system and is based on monopoly privilege. It needs to be reformed.

Just read American Law and Procedure (in many volumes) by Lasalle Extension University and buy illegally copied CDs of he BAR/BRI Bar Review on Craig's list and you'll know everything you need to know.

I would presume that in this sector as elsewhere, the forces of supply and demand are relentless.

You are correct. However, I don't think anyone is arguing that the current prices are not a function of our current equilibrium point on the supply/demand curves. The general thrust of these posts has been to point out the artificially inflated demand curve caused by government subsidy (identical to the CRA and Freddie/Fannie's influence on the housing bubble).

It creates an artificially high demand for law school seats because of all of the students who, under free-market borrowing rates, would choose not to take out student loans, and are now flocking to get JDs.